


I remembered the way I would wait for you (four times Zelda wished she’d brought Vinegar Tom to the Academy and one time she did)

by hacklesacademy (ladyvivien)



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Vinegar Tom is an Good Boy give him treats, Vinegar Tom is the unsung hero of CAOS, Zelda worries about what other people think too much, except the girl's a witch and the dog is her goblin servant, this is just a story about a girl and her dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 05:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16549706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyvivien/pseuds/hacklesacademy
Summary: Only babies and ninnies bring their familiars to school.





	I remembered the way I would wait for you (four times Zelda wished she’d brought Vinegar Tom to the Academy and one time she did)

**Author's Note:**

> The Academy of Unseen Arts makes zero sense in terms of admissions, so I’ve based this on the English secondary school system, where you start at 11.
> 
> Title taken from the best/worst song about pets ever, The Weakerthans' 'Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure'. Don't listen to it, it's too sad.

**I**

”You’re my goblin servant, you’re supposed to _understand!_ ”

They’re out in the Greendale woods for what is supposed to be one last long walk before Zelda goes off to school, but Vinegar Tom is sitting in the clearing refusing to move. He’s been sulking ever since his mistress sat down and explained to him that he couldn’t go with her but that she'd be home at holidays to make a fuss of him, that the Academy is cold and draughty and isn't it much nicer in the kitchen by the fire? That even Zelda isn't sure she really wants to go, that she's scared and what if she takes him and something bad happens? 

She hadn't understood at first, either.

“What’s the point of having a familiar to protect you if you leave him behind?” she'd demanded, a request for citations and sources on her lips, because why on Earth would the Dark Lord put a spirit in bondage to a witch only for the witch he's meant to be protecting to leave him alone for most of the year?

Her mother had rolled her eyes and continued packing the case.

"You're a big girl now, Zelda. You don't need your familiar to look after you, do you?"

There was something in the way her mother asked that made swallow her fear and shake her head. "Of course not. I'm not a  _baby_." She was the oldest, and that meant being more grown up than the others, even if Edward had announced at six that he was going to be High Priest one day.

Right now he's just a little boy playing in the pet cemetery with Hilda. She can hear their shouts of delight and feigned terror from here. He isn't even old enough for a familiar. And being old enough means knowing that sometimes you have to leave the things you love behind. 

"You're meant to do what I say," she glares. "I'm a witch, you're just a stupid animal."

Vinegar Tom isn't really a dog, but the look he gives her now is pure, instinctive hurt, as though she'd kicked him. 

"Fine," she spits, turning on her heel. "Stay out here all night if you want, I'm going home."

She feels the distance stretch out like a cord between them, tugging on her heart with every step. She doesn't look round, but she breathes a quiet sigh of relief when she hears paws scampering after her, and the long shadow of a dog falls into step with hers.  

 

**II**

 

Despite Zelda’s protestations, Hilda packs her cluster of spiders carefully in a jar and places it in her suitcase the night before they leave for school. She remonstrates with her parents, even tries to coerce Edward - still young, still malleable, but already starting to take Hilda’s side - into agreeing with her. You don’t take familiars to school, you just _don’t_. Everyone will laugh at her - and, by extension, Zelda. Their entire family name will be muddied and no one will ever take her seriously and Edward will never be high priest and it will be stupid babyish Hilda's stupid babyish fault. 

She takes long, deep breaths like her mother taught her when she was little and hadn't got her temper under control. Zelda’s a third former now, she’s not a child. She’s a prefect, she’s not a weakling. She sat stony-faced through her Harrowing and didn't cry once and ever since she's been something of a legend at the Academy.

She turns back as Hilda trails her through the hallway, all beaming smile and bright eyes that have spotted the Head Girl standing a few feet away, flips her hair and calls out,

"Careful with that suitcase! You don't want your spiders to escape."

After that, things unfold as they do any time a new pupil clearly won't make the grade and Zelda barely has to do anything at all to mark out the very clear distinction between herself and her sister. She does anyway, just in case.

But teasing Hilda at school feels very different from teasing her at home. There’s a sick feeling in her stomach that might be guilt, and as she falls into an uneasy sleep wondering how her sister is getting on in the iron maiden, she wishes she had soft fur to run her fingers through, a warm body to take away the chill shivering through her, someone to reassure her that it's all going to be alright.

 

**III**

 

There’s a memorial for Edward at the Academy She makes it through somehow, gives a eulogy. Hilda sobs her way through hysterically, but Zelda clings onto her composure and afterwards she hears whispers that she and Edward didn't even get along, that maybe his death wasn't even an accident, that she stands to inherit the Spellman family fortune and his place on the Council. 

She ignores them, pushes the scream back down in her throat and behaves exactly as the sister of a former High Priest should. It isn't until she gets home and Vinegar Tom shuffles out of his basket to put his head on her lap in front of the fire that she collapses, soaking his fur with her tears. 

 

**IV**

 

There were a number of factors Zelda failed to consider when she bundled the Blackwood girl up in a blanket and nestled the babe in her medicine bag, not least who would look after her when Zelda was leading choir practice. Hilda genuinely seems to enjoy her job - not that Zelda would know first hand, of course, having arrived on her sister’s first day with a list of mocking remarks and impossible coffee orders only to be informed that she was banned from the establishment - and even if she didn’t, it’s clear she thinks Zelda has made her own bed and must lie in it alone.

So she turns to Sabrina’s old babysitter for help, knowing that if anything should happen, Vinegar Tom will tell her immediately. She pastes on a smile and leads them through their warm up exercises, feeling Faustus' watchful eyes on her, and wonders if she'd left her familiar protecting the right witch.

 

**V**

 

Whispers follow her through the halls and no one will meet her eyes. They’re terrified of her - half of them cringing in case they’re the next to feel her wrath, the rest convinced that it’s some sort of trick. That the Harrowing will be replaced by something far worse, that the ban on familiars being lifted is some sort of double bluff and that they’ll arrive to the refectory one day to find a suspicious stew being served. That the regime change following Father Blackwood's unexpected demise will be worse than the last. That actually, she's enchanted him into an animal and cursed him to follow her everywhere.

The Dean of the Academy of Unseen Arts strides through her school, familiar at her heels, and doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks.


End file.
